


Aftermath (Post Episode 3.22)

by joannereads



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 3.22, Drinking Beer, Episode Related, First Kiss, Fluffy Feelings, M/M, bit of angst, feeling and shmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:55:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joannereads/pseuds/joannereads
Summary: Post 3.22: Ho’opioI watched this today. My daughter said she remembered the case but thought it was a Criminal Minds episode, and I think that shows how dark this episode seems when compared with a lot of others. I don;t know if that's because Steve takes Danny's badge and lets him wail on a guy, or if it's because of kids being abducted, but it hits home. So I wrote the end scene that was missing to the episode. The recovery, the aftermath, and the first kiss. Because it needed fixing up a bit!
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 26
Kudos: 126





	Aftermath (Post Episode 3.22)

Steve fills the ice bag and then turns around. Danny is watching him but isn’t really present at the same time. This case took a toll on Danny, one Steve can hardly imagine, but one he wants to understand. He turns, rests against the counter, and wraps the ice bag in a thin towel.

“Come here.”

Danny leaves the doorway and stands in front of Steve, blindly following orders. Steve takes Danny’s right hand in his own and presses the ice to the bruised and bloodied knuckles. They stand in silence, Steve slumped against the counter and Danny’s soul slumped against Steve. It stretches out, that silence, filling the gaps between them and calming Danny’s shattering heart.

“All I could see was Grace,” Danny says softly.

Steve looks up, away from the physical wounds he is nursing, and straight into the eyes of the emotional ones. Danny is crying, Tears roll down his cheeks and Steve panics: Danny is always angry and frustrated or calm and rational, this devastated Danny is new. Even after Grace was taken last year, he wasn’t broken like this.

Steve reasons it was because he had more control then. Danny knew who had her and why. This case was a twisted mess and, while they saved one girl, there were so many more to try and find. The silence is parsed by an anguished sob and Steve drops the ice altogether and hauls Danny into his chest to let him ride it out. He feels Danny’s hot breaths and terrified tears through the cotton of his t shirt, and wraps his arms around Danny more tightly. Steve waits.

It’s not that he isn’t a bit broken too. He took Danny’s badge today—something he never imagined he would do—and he knows that’s broken a little more of Danny too. Steve let him wail on Ray Beckett, let him punch and strike and hit, and the pitiful wails of the man as he gave up the information will forever be seared into Steve’s brain. Not because he hasn’t heard worse, or even done worse, but because it was Danny.

Steve bites back a shudder. Danny’s hands are bunched in his shirt and tugging at him, the agony of the day exacerbated by the agonies of the past. Steve knows. Every time Danny closes his eyes, he sees Grace locked in that room for years on end. And he knows this because he does too. Over the last couple of days, Steve has found himself wondering just what he would have done if Grace had been taken this time. What ends would he have gone to? What rules would he have outright broken? Would they have been bigger than taking his partner’s badge and letting him assault a civilian? A sociopathic, evil fucker of a civilian, but nonetheless a civilian.

It’s completely dark by the time Danny has recovered enough to step back from the safety of Steve’s embrace. Danny knows that Steve’s arms have been the only thing holding him together, but he also has to brave standing on his own again. He wipes his eyes, stoops for the ice pack, and shuffles off to the couch and the TV. He flicks through the channels, avoiding news feeds at any cost, and Steve settles next to him—placing a couple of opened Longboards on the table—just as he decides on a Spanish telenovela he has no hope of understanding. Steve smirks a little at the choice and then settles back.

After a few moments, Steve looks over again and sees Danny’s brow is furrowed in concentration.

“Why put it on if you don’t understand it?” Steve asks. Danny glances over and pulls a face. Danny may name Steve’s faces regularly, but he doesn’t do the same. He just knows whether it’s a face that means he’s in trouble or not, and this time he isn’t. So that’s a start.

“Like you, Super-SEAL, have any more of an idea what is going on right now on this ridiculously small screen of yours.” Danny gestures a little wildly, and it feels dreadfully familiar other than the cuts riddling his knuckles.

Steve decides there and then that he is going to be whatever Danny needs, and right now that’s someone to entertain. He leans closer, so that his lips are mere millimetres from Danny’s ear lobe, and begins to translate what is being spoken on screen, ridiculously dramatic voices and all.

“Rico, why are you here when you should be with Monique? Isabella, my darling, my love, there is nowhere else I can be right now. Your lips, they are like magnets to me.”

Danny smirks, but settles a little further into the couch. Of course Steve speaks fluent Spanish, alongside passable Chinese, Korean and few Middle Eastern languages. Steve continues, his breath now hot on Danny’s ear.

“Rico, you must leave. If Carlos catches you here, he’ll kill you as soon as look at you. Isabella, no. I cannot leave. I need you to kiss me. Just one kiss and I can go on without you for the rest of my life. One kiss, please.”

Danny shivers. It’s hard to concentrate on the screen when Steve is so close, so warm, and saying such things into his ear.

Steve is beginning to regret his choices—like all of them, ever. His pants are tight, his breathing heavy, and Danny is so damn close. He sits back, trying to look unhurried but likely failing, and swallows several mouthfuls of his beer. Isabella and Rico—in a move that shocks no one—are suddenly locking lips and the music swells to a great cheesy crescendo before another, Carlos Danny supposes, bursts into the room. Rolling his eyes more than he has in months, Danny shuffles through the channels again before he turns the TV off altogether.

The room is almost completely dark, other than the light of the moon which filters in to the room behind and illuminates small patches of the floor with pale yellow. Steve sighs softly into the darkness.

“What can I do?” he asks of the Danny shaped lump next to him.

“You’ve already done everything, babe. You listened, you iced. The hug was pretty good too.”

Steve sees Danny turn to him slightly, and the small smile he catches is genuine but sad.

“We should have called Rachel, gotten Grace for the night.”

“Nah. I’m not in the right place, you know? Might’ve ended up scaring her. I’ll call tomorrow. Maybe we can take her swimming and for dinner, the Hilton maybe?”

Steve’s heart swells—that Danny automatically includes him in the plans in amazing. And just what he needs too, because if he’s honest he loves Grace more than almost anyone else. Almost. He casts his gaze over to Danny again, and this time the other man is watching him with a strange expression.

“Where’d you go?” Danny asks.

“Was thinking about Grace,” Steve answers honestly.

“Come on.” Danny stands up and gestures for Steve to follow. He leads them out to the beach after kicking his shoes and socks (bright stripes today—Steve loves Danny’s unorthodox sock choices) off at the door. They wade up to their knees into the ocean, and Danny feels almost cleansed by it.

“I love being out here, with you, like this,” Danny says quietly. Steve recognises it for the confession it is. Danny has always expounded on his hatred of the beach and the ocean – and Steve knows now after their disastrous fishing trip why that hatred ran so deep. It was underpinned with fear and grief. So to admit that he loves this space of beach is a big deal, and Steve takes the gift that it is. He reaches over to where Danny stands. He is close anyway. Steve twines their fingers together, careful of the bruising, and just holds Danny’s hand as they watch the sea roll over and over and over.

It’s soothing for the spirit and the soul and Steve feels rejuvenated, like he is whole again. Danny squeezes his fingers every now and then, as though reassuring himself that Steve is real and still there. As the night passes, Steve’s toes grow colder, until he tugs Danny back to the beach instead of the water. But Danny doesn’t stop, he keeps on going, back in to the house.

“Can I stay?” he asks. He left his shoes outside, so it’s clear he thinks the answer is a given. Which it is.

“Of course. You’re always welcome to crash here,” Steve replies with a soft smile. Something shutters across Danny’s face, barely there and then gone again. “What was that?” Steve asks.

“What? Nothing, what was anything?” Danny mumbles. Steve feels something in the air is shifting, something sinuous and demanding, and he is drawn to where Danny stands with his hands stuffed in his pocket.

“Not nothing,” Steve says, placing his palm on Danny’s cheek and lifting his face to meet his own. “Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Danny tries, but he doesn’t push Steve away and he doesn’t step back.

“I’m listening. I want to hear.”

Danny draws a shaky breath and looks up once more into Steve McGarrett’s beautiful eyes. Then he steps back, taking Steve’s heart with him for a moment, until Steve realises that Danny is heading for the stairs. Steve rushes through locking the doors and setting the alarm system before hurtling up the steps himself.

He finds Danny perched on the end of his bed, slowly unbuttoning his shift. Steve matches the action, though with his t shirt the removal process is quicker.

“You asked me what I wanted, earlier, what I needed. I lied, because I told you that you already did everything. But, you see, I want one more thing. I want to forget this fucking day. I want to forget all the times I saw Grace’s face on top of Ella’s. I want to forget how it felt to lose her last year, and how it felt to get her back again. I know I can’t forget forever, but maybe you can help me forget for a little while.” He tugs his shirt out of the waist band of her dress trousers and turns to Steve once more. Steve whose face is so open and stunned ad beautiful.

“Danno,” he whispers, before Danny leans in and takes Steve’s lips in a gentle, searching kiss. Steve isn’t sure if this is a test or a promise, but he pushes Danny back just the same. With his hands wrapped around Danny’s forearms, he finds his eyes searching for Danny’s.

“I can’t—” Steve begins, and he sees that shuttering look flash across Danny’s expression again. “One night isn’t enough,” he clarifies, and he swears he sees something a little like hope replace the emptiness of a few moments before as he stares into Danny’s eyes. “I want this, with you, more than I ever really knew I think. But I can’t be a one-night thing for you. It would fuck everything up. And . . .”

“And?”

“And I would always want more,” Steve whispers. Danny grabs Steve in that same instant and presses their mouth together again, their kisses open mouthed and hot and clumsy. It’s so hard to catch their breaths, but Steve doesn’t ever want this moment to end.

“I could—” Danny begins, then he laughs and sucks in a few more breaths before continuing. “I could spend the rest of my life helping you forget, if you wanted to do the same in return?”

Steve grins wide and delighted and he presses the tenderest of kisses to Danny’s lips. “And when, earlier, and you asked. Damn it. I asked if I could stay. I didn’t just mean now, tonight. I don’t want to go home to an empty house. Every time I leave here, every damn time I leave you behind, I feel like I’m leaving a part of me behind. So, can I stay?”

“Yes, you can stay. Of course you can stay. But I’m a mess, Danno, a bigger mess than you know.” Steve’s head is suddenly full of nightmares, his memories resurrecting themselves when he can’t fight them any longer, and trying to rip themselves from his head in the early hours of the morning.

“We’re both messy, babe. And I know, your messes are classified, but I’ll be here. Even if it’s just to kiss the redacted shit better. Okay?”

Steve doesn’t respond, he just twists and presses Danny back on to the bed so that he can press wet kisses to his collar bone, to the pulse point below his ear, to the ribs above his heart and to anywhere else he can think of. Slowly, Danny’s mood changes, and he forgets. Forgets the horrors of the room with the ankle chain, the horrors of Grace’s abduction. Instead, his mind is full of sensation and his heart is full of love. Steve takes him apart in the best way, kisses and laving and holding and stroking, until every sense Danny has is full of Steve. It’s incredible—better than he had ever imagined or hoped for.

“Can I—”

“Yes.” Danny doesn’t need to know what the question was. The answer is always going to be yes, for Steve it will always be yes.

The following morning, Danny awakes to an armful of Steve and an assful of . . . well, some things are better left unsaid. But he likes it. He feels owned, safe, protected.

Complete.


End file.
